


Making up the Words as I go

by LadyArinn



Series: Tumblr Prompts Made Me Do It (Percy Jackson version) [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5449829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyArinn/pseuds/LadyArinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico is busy working in his step mother's flower shop when one day a blond medical student steps in and keeps on coming back. It's weird, and Piper and Jason know nothing when they insist that the guy has a crush on them. They're wrong, and Nico is going to prove it to them.</p><p>Based on tumblr prompt: 'I work part-time in a flower shop and you keep asking me about what this flower means in flower language and I honestly don’t know so I make stuff up’ AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making up the Words as I go

**Author's Note:**

> I got done with this yesterday, but I've had a terrible day so it took me a while to post it.
> 
> Nico and Will are both in their early twenties and in school (med and graduate), just so you know. I know that their ages are really unclear.
> 
> Based on the tumblr prompt ‘I work part-time in a flower shop and you keep asking me about what this flower means in flower language and I honestly don’t know so I make stuff up’, which was originally "so you give me a lesson", but I know that if a customer asked me a question as a test to see if I knew the answer and then condescendingly schools me in it when I admit to not knowing, therefore wasting my time, I would not be attracted to them. I would actually wish to do violent things to their persons, which is why I changed it.

Working in his stepmother’s flower shop isn’t the worst thing to ever happen to Nico, and sometimes he doesn’t even really mind it all that much. He gets a little bit of money for nothing more than standing around or keeping stock and talking to strangers, Persephone had started treating him a bit better about being born once he’d shown he wasn’t useless to her, and it was a way to pass the time while Jason was living the busy life he lead way too far away for true comfort.

The only thing about it was that he didn’t care about flowers what so ever and that he hated interacting with people. They were terrible and pushy and rude, and treated him like shit and he would truly much prefer it if no one ever stepped through that door with it’s stupid little wind chime it hit every time it opened (Persephone had said it seemed closer to nature than a bell) ever again.

The next person who walks in is almost certainly the perfect example, he’s sure, and he’s already dreading everything that was about to happen before the guy had actually fully stepped into the store. He’s cute, sure, in the stereotypical California blond way. All tall and tanned with shaggy hair, wearing boarding shorts and flip flops and a tank top that proclaims he just doesn’t want to “taco bout it” with a stupid cartoon taco beneath the words. It was sickening, made even worse by the fact that the guy doesn’t take his sunglasses off when he’s inside, even as he starts looking at the flowers. Nico knows that you should never make presumptions based off of only looks, but even so he’s pretty sure this guy is going to be the biggest douche in the world and in a moment he’s going to have to interact with him and even _smile_ at him. It makes him sigh heavily and wish that he could be literally anywhere else in the world.

The guy stands in front of one of the displays of readymade and pretty much generic bouquets for about five minutes, unmoving except to occasionally lift his hands like he was about to make a choice only to jerk them back down almost violently. It was kind of funny and Nico was half tempted to leave him alone just to see how long he would keep doing it, but he did have to actually do his job.

He shoved away from the counter with some quiet muttering, quieting down when he got close to the guy because he really didn’t need any of the customers complaining about him again. He forced a too small and completely fake smile onto his face and asked, “Are you shopping for anything specific?” With a voice that sounded way too high pitched and unnatural to his ears.

The guy whips around, his mouth opening a little in shock, and Nico supposes that his eyes must have been pretty wide too, he just can’t tell because of the sunglasses he was wearing _inside_.

“Uh… Yes.” The guy says, standing stiffly like he’d been caught doing something suspicious. Nico wanted to just go back to his nice little counter where there was much less human interaction at the moment because he did not want to deal with this guy, but Persephone would probably fire him or something if he did it and she found out about it.

“And what may that be, sir?” He manages to say chipperly enough, gritting his teeth a little as he forced his smile to remain. The blonde jerks a bit at that.

“Oh! Right, um, my mom’s been having a rough few weeks and I though, uh, that flowers would work?” He says it like a question, and Nico barely keeps himself from rolling his eyes. This guy was acting _way_ too weird about a bunch of flowers.

“Do you need any help finding some?” He asks, internally wincing at how sharply that had come out. He really didn’t need any more of Persephone’s one-on-one meetings where she made him go over how to talk to customers, and if she hear him talking like that there would definitely be some in his future. “Or would you like a custom bouquet made?”

But the guy looks relieved despite his tone, and nods eagerly. “Oh, yeah. That would actually be really great because I can’t make up my mind and none of them look right, you know?” He sounds so honestly confused about it, and of course Nico’s stupid mouth gets away from him.

“It could be the sunglasses.” He says dryly, and before he can regret it too much the blond is blushing and fumbling to pull them off.

“I forgot again. Shit. Oh,” His blush goes a bit deeper and his eyes flick up, the blue of them almost impossible in their color, “Sorry. About the, uh, you know. Cursing.” He gives a half smile in apology, and Nico grabs onto a bubble of laughter attempting to gain freedom and pushes it down. This guy was apologizing for cursing, didn’t that just take the fucking shit?

“It’s alright,” He manages, wishing his voice held less amusement than it did. The blond smiles at him kind of goofily, and Nico sighs internally because this guy is weird.

“So, for just a bad day you’d want something happy, so yellow.” Nico says, inserting some confidence in his voice because he found yellow kind of nauseating himself but people seemed to find it a happy color.

“She loves yellow!” The guy says, nodding eagerly and practically beaming for some inexplicable reason. Nico gives him something that he hoped passed as a smile, though it was probably closer to a grimace, and walked over to the counter and to the fridges that held the loose flowers they used to make bouquets.

He pulls down a clear vase, and shoots the guy a look, “How much are you willing to spend?”

“Ah, flowers are expensive, right? So… $45?” He says more like a question, and Nico nods.

He looks at the flowers and goes with the yellow and happy looking theme, pulling out some yellow roses and gerbera daisies, pushing in some Viking chrysanthemums and goldenrods, and then filling it out some greens. He’d never gotten the hang of making the really impressive things his stepmother could, and he had never been able to understand her when she talked about connecting to the flowers and seeing where they were meant to be and the shit like that. His method just consisted of just putting them in a vase or whatever and then he kept adding more until he thought that it looked good .

When he was done shoving flowers in it looked pretty nice and like something that would be happy inducing, so he ties a purple ribbon around the vase and carries it over to the counter, where the guy was watching him with a strange expression on his face.

“Is it okay?” Nico asks, nodding to the flowers.

“Perfect!” The guy squeaks, and Nico can’t help but feel that that answer was loaded. He didn’t know what it was loaded with, but it was certainly with something.

He starts imputing prices into the calculator, feeling the itchy weight of the customer’s eyes on him the entire time. He’d just messed up because of it, hissing as he has to delete all of his work to start again, when the guy who could probably contend to be one of the weirdest customers he’d ever had to deal with interrupts with, “What do they mean?”

“What?”

“The flowers? What do they mean?”

How the fuck should he know that? He got that he was working at a flower shop, but he didn’t actually care about them. Flowers were flowers, and he’d always ignored

Persephone to the best of his ability when she’d tried to tell him about them. There was usually a bunch of little books filled with them next to the register, but they were sold out and they hadn’t gotten any new stock in yet.

The guy was staring at him with those disconcerting blue eyes, and suddenly Nico felt pressured not to tell him the truth, like he’d be _disappointed_. So, for reasons he doesn’t understand, he makes stuff up.

“Yellow roses mean… happy love,” Because the only one he knew was the roses stood for love, so the different colors must mean different kinds of love. “The chrysanthemums mean joy, and the goldenrods mean…” He couldn’t think of anymore synonyms for happy even though he knew they were on the tip of his tongue. It was like he’d forgotten the entire English language, “A hope that they smile .”

That was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever said. The guy seemed to believe it, though, smiling and nodding like Nico had offered up some sage advice or something. Nico forces his attention back to his calculator and clears his throat to try and get rid of the tightness that clenched it from his embarrassment.

“Then it’s going to be $43.95.” He says after adding everything together, imputing it into the register. The blonde nods and pays, picking up the vase as if to go, but then instead of leaving he just stands there swaying in place a bit like he wasn’t sure what his next step was going to be. “Have a nice day, sir.” Nico says after enduring him standing there uselessly and staring for too long, hoping it would prompt him to leave.

“My name is Will!” The guy exclaims out of nowhere, making Nico jump because he had not been expecting that, “My name is Will.” He says again, this time more calmly and with less shouting.

“…Nico.” He says, finally answering the question that those very blue eyes held, boring into him expectantly. The guy smiles brightly, and starts backing away.

“Bye Nico!” He says way too happily, waving and nearly dropping his flowers and then having to fumble to keep them from falling. Nico lifts his hand into a lifeless, reflexive wave, feeling more confused than he had ever been before.

The guy leaves the shop in a flurry of movement, his face almost entirely red. And Nico is left standing in an empty shop with his hand in the air, not quite sure what had actually just happened.

“Have a nice day.” He says belatedly and lamely, no one but the flowers around to hear and judge him.

  

* * *

 

He kind of forgets about it, the random guy just another customer story he tells to Jason over the phone while eating takeout on the floor instead of on any of his furniture because he’d dropped a fork and then had been too lazy to get up. But then it all comes rushing back when he looks up from his crossword puzzle at the sound of the door to come face to face with the guy. He’s better put together this time in a blue unbuttoned short sleeved shirt over a white tank top and khaki shorts, still with the flip flops but without the sunglasses. It was a marked improvement.

“Welcome back,” Nico says after getting over his surprise and stuffing his crossword underneath the counter. The guy flashes him a huge smile.

“You remembered!” He seems way too happy about that, and Nico is taken aback because the guy _had_ been kind of unforgettable, though not in all the best ways.

“Uh, yeah. I did…” _Phil_ _?_ Nico was terrible with names. “…So who are you shopping for today?”

He seemed almost shocked by the question, which was stupid because he was in a store. What did he expect? He hurried up to the counter and stuffed his hands into his pockets, eyes flitting over the flowers in the fridges behind him.

“Well… Could you make something small? Like, around ten dollars.”

“For who or what occasion?”

“Um…” Again with the shock. Did the guy not realize where he was? “A… friend.”

Ah, probably someone he was interested in then.

“Do you know their favorite color?” He asks as he turns to put it together, his back facing the guy so he doesn’t see the slightly panicked look on his face.

“Anything is fine!” He says a bit too loudly, his voice an octave or two higher in pitch than usual.

Nico rolls his eyes, unseen, and quickly puts three yellow carnations and six daisies together before making a small plastic cone for his latest creation.

“Is this alright?” He asks when he shows it to him, kind of figuring that it wouldn’t be because he had put literally zero effort into it.

“Perfect!” A pause, “What do they mean?”

He would have liked to have said that he’d read up on the meanings since the last time the guy had been in, but he hadn’t. He didn’t care and neither did the majority of humans walking the earth, so he thought it would be best to use his time to do other more meaningful things, like literally anything else.

So, once again, he made it all up.

“Yellow carnations mean…” Something about pride, maybe? He remembered reading or hearing about it a _long_ time ago. “I am proud. Daisies mean I like you. So all together, it means ‘I am proud to like you.’”

Sometimes he had to wonder how the bullshit that came out of his mouth even managed to come into existence. It was ridiculous, and this guy actually seemed to believe it.

He paid, and from his signature on his receipt Nico was able to decipher that his name was Will, not Bill. It certainly suited him much better. And when Nico looked up from the paper he saw that the guy was just standing there like he had during his first visit, and just like the last time Nico was confused about his continued presence.

“What’s your favorite color?” The blonde blurts out, almost looking more surprised at the question than Nico was.

“Uh, grey?” Nico asks more than says, wondering what was going on. Will’s head jerks in a nod, and then he shuffles back a couple of steps toward the door.

“Mine is blue.” A few more steps back, and then he was nibbling at his lip like he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out what exactly to say.

“Bye.” He finally settles on, and Nico wonders what the other option in his internal debate had been.

“Yeah, bye.” Nico mutters, confused by the smile he gets in return just before the guy leaves.

Over the next three weeks the guy comes back three times, entering the store every Thursday at the same time, always having Nico make him something and then asking him what the flowers all meant before asking him some personal question or just leaving awkwardly.

“He likes you.” Jason says, though Nico couldn’t hear him because the phone had slipped from its position between his ear and shoulder when his sweatpants hadn’t cooperated and gone easily onto his body.

“Could you say that again? My phone slipped.”

“I said that he likes you. He has a crush on you. He _liiiiikes_ you.” Nico pulls the phone back at the sing-songing, scowling at it a moment before putting it back to his ear.

“Are you twelve? Have you regressed? Is there something in the water wherever the hell you are that is de-aging you?”

“We’re in San Francisco, Nico,” Jason’s voice is far too amused, Nico thinks as he pulls his hair back into a tiny ponytail. It needs to be put to a stop. “Not Kalamazoo. Do you miss me? Is that what this is about?”

“I hate you.” He sighs as he walks out of his closet of a bedroom, wondering if he had any pizza rolls in his freezer.

“Piper! Nico misses us!”

“Die.” Nico grumbles, opening the freezer and leaning his head against the door as he stared into its icy depths.

“Hey Nico, I’m putting this on speaker phone-”

“You miss us? That’s so sweet, we miss you too!”

A pained groan, and he lifts his head to bang it against the door. “Yeah, hi.”

“So tell me about this boy Jason says has a crush on you!”

“He doesn't have a crush on me, okay? He’s just… Weird.” He shrugs, poking through his freezers meager offerings, “Should I have a Hot Pocket or a ready meal?”

“Hot pocket all the way.” Jason says confidently, “And don’t think you can just change the topic. Either this guy likes you, or he’s planning on killing you or something.” There was a pause, “That was a sarcastic comment said to get you to realize that he obviously likes you. Do not start thinking this guy is actually planning on murdering you.” Another pause, “Though, you should always be wary of strangers just in case they actually are murderers.”

“From what Jason has told me, I’d say he likes you.” Piper inputs before Jason could ramble anymore, and Nico scowls because he does not want any of this. Well, maybe the Hot Pocket, but everything else was unwanted.

“And I’m saying you’re crazy. I’m the one who has been actually interacting with him, so I think I know better.” He scoffs as he angrily punches in the cooking time on the microwave. There’s a silence in which he can practically feel their doubt dripping all over himself.

“Don’t take this the wrong way Nico, but you’re kind of awful on reading people.” Piper tentatively says, probably so that Jason wouldn’t have to say it because Jason and Nico always pouted horribly when they fought. She was taking one for the team, which was really too bad since Nico still blamed Jason for it.

“I am not.”

“Yeah, you are.” The happy couple who were off living their blissful practically common law married life in _San Francisco_ say at the same time. Nico kind of wants to throw his freshly done Hot Pocket away because he feels too frustrated by them to eat, but that would be a waste of perfectly passable food and he didn’t want that.

“Look Nico,” Piper sighs, “Just watch him the next time he comes into the shop, okay? Take in all of the little things he does and try to figure out if we’re telling you the truth or not.”

“Listen to Piper.” Jason says, as if it were the sagest advice he could impart.

“Listen to your heart!” She exclaims with too much amusement to handle at that particular moment and time, and Nico hangs up on them because they were ruining his dinner.

He was going to watch that guy the next time he came in, and then he was going to report back and tell them just how wrong they were, he decides grumpily, biting down viciously into his Hot Pocket and burning his mouth from the scalding cheese and sauce he releases into it. It feels a bit like the fires of hell running along his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and he feels like it perfectly suits his mood. 

 

* * *

 

Nico was ready the next time the guy walked in, prepared to watch his every move and even take notes if need be to tell Piper and Jason just how wrong they were.

He did as he always had, coming up to the counter with a big grin and those too blue eyes, hands stuffed into his pockets almost nervously. What did he have to be nervous about? Nico didn’t know, but it certainly wasn’t that the guy had a crush on him. That idea was ridiculous.

“Here for my usual!” The guy says way too happily, eyes just a bit too intense. Nico nods and starts to put together a ten dollar tiny bouquet, though it was almost too small to even be called that. And this time while he puts it together he shoots glances at the guy instead of ignoring him like he usually did, and every time he looked over the guy was watching him with this look on his face, a half smile that looked stupid. It looked so stupid that Nico had no idea why he could feel his face getting hot.

He ignored it as best as he could and finished putting the flowers together. It was just a bundle of yellow daffodils today, but when he handed them over the guy smiled like it was the best thing he’d ever seen.

“And what do they mean?” He asks just like he always did, smiling and looking at him with those big blue eyes and…

Shit.

“Spring.” Nico says a bit dumbly, and the guy smiles and nods and pays, doing his usual backing up asking question thing.

“So… What’s your favorite season?” He asks, and shit.

Shit shit shit.

“Fall.” Nico croaks, and why on earth does he smile so much? _Why_?

He has perfect teeth, Nico notes, and that’s just a really unfair thing to suddenly throw at him, especially with that smile. That smile was… How had Nico not noticed that?

It was probably because he was too busy trying to ignore him because he thought the guy was a complete weirdo. He probably was a complete weirdo, only now Nico was aware that he was a cute weirdo who had a crush on him.

“Mine’s summer.” Will confides, which is so stereotypical of him that Nico can’t hold back his snort. The blonde’s face flushes like Nico had been laughing at him, and he quickly hurries out of the store, nearly tripping over his goodbyes as he nearly runs out the door.

“Shit.” Nico sighs, closing his eyes and sagging against the counter. “ _Shit_.”

And it only got worse from there. The guy keeps consistently coming in and buying his tiny bundle of flowers and asking all of his questions and Nico keeps noticing things. Things like the fact that his hands were nice and big, or that his hair looked really nice, and that when he’d gotten it cut to a reasonable and not shaggy length it showed off a really nice jaw line. He was tall, which wasn’t something Nico had thought he would like since he was shorter than average, and he had nice arms. He may have had always had a thing about nicely toned arms.

And dear God, that smile.

“What am I going to do?” Nico pitifully asks the ceiling, and more specifically Jason and Piper through his phone, “It’s really annoying.”

“Tell me more about his eyes,” Piper teases, “What was the exact shade of blue you said they were? Like the sky?”

Nico scowled. “No.”

“He compared them to the ocean,” Jason corrected, his voice way too happy about everything. Nico couldn’t remember why he’d ever allowed himself to become friends with the goober, “Which was really romantic and poetic of you.”

“Fuck off.” Nico scoffs, even though he had said that because it was true, but ‘the ocean’ wasn’t enough of a descriptor. Because Will’s eyes were the blue of the ocean depths just before the sunlight stopped being able to reach through, deep and dark and beautiful.

“It’s just… I don’t know…” Nico trails off, getting really frustrated very quickly.

“Hey,” Jason soothed, seeing – or, rather, hearing – right through his struggles, and Nico could tell by the sudden lowering in background noise and the raising in Jason’s volume that he’d taken it off of speaker phone and had given Nico a bit of privacy with him. It was exactly what he had needed and because Jason knew that… It was pretty amazing and probably why Nico could never get rid of his best friend. He was too great at being Nico’s friend.

“You don’t know what to do because the last time you dealt with feelings like this it was in middle and high school and it was for Percy.” Jason finishes for him, “But you don’t have to worry so much, alright? Because at least this time you know the person returns your feelings and is more than bi-curious at the most.” He says, a trace of humor threading through his voice.

Nico snorts because it’s obviously what Jason wants, but his throat is maybe a bit tighter than usual.

“What if I’m reading it all wrong, though?” He asks quietly, and Jason sighs.

“If you haven’t been completely imagining everything you’ve reported to us, then you’re not. There’s no way this guy is not interested in you, and after being initially off put because you’re terrible at reading people’s feelings for you, you haven’t got any creep vibes, right?”

“Right.” He confirms, and then he hesitates before his next confession, biting his lip because he hated how corny what he was about to say was. But, Jason was his one and only true confidant, and he usually felt better after telling him things.

“We touched.” He says, embarrassed by the stupidity of it, rolling over on to his side and curling up a bit, “Or, our hands did. I cut my hand on the shears today and he grabbed it to look at it. Said he was a med student.”

“And?” Jason asks, all patience and no judgement and support.

“Sparks. Like in books and shit. It was like electricity flowing between us.”

Jason hums and chuckles a tiny bit, though not too much because he didn’t want to spook Nico. “I think that it’s about time you share your feelings.” He says almost fondly, and Nico tries to ignore just how sick that makes him to his stomach.

 

* * *

   

Two weeks later (he’d chickened out the last week) and Nico was determined that today would be the day. He would say more than about five sentences to the guy, and then he would ask him out. Just to do something small and low key, like coffee. That was a casual date thing that people did. Casually.

Or lunch. Lunch was the low pressure meal option, since dinner seemed more legit and desert and breakfast held implications Nico did not want to approach just yet.  
Nico had figured out the best way to do it to, and after running it by Piper and Jason and after making a really quick call to Hazel to make sure they hadn’t been lying to him (and therefore enduring about twenty minutes of her cooing of the entire thing), he’d been studying so that he could make sure to get it right when the time came.

And that time was today.

Will walks in looking like he always did, all sunny and windblown happiness, and Nico clears his throat of the tightness and hoped that it wouldn’t squeak or do something stupid like that.

“Hey Nico!” Will enthused, “I’ll be having my usual.”

“No.”

The blond froze mid-step, his grin and his all-around happy demeanor wavering as he stared in shock, and Nico winced because that was not how he had wanted to get this thing started. It was way too harsh and the guy looked so confused now, and he was now pretty sure that even getting up had been a huge mistake.

“What do you mean, no?” He asked, his voice even a little hurt, “Is it-”

“I already made you something.” Nico blurts, blushing a bit, and Will just stares. He stares and then his eyes widen, his cheeks tinging the same pink hues.

“You did?” He kind of squeaks, like maybe he knows where it was going.

“Yeah.” Nico whips around, fists clenching at what he felt was the impending disaster of everything as he open the cooler behind him and pulled out the bouquet he had spent way too much time worrying about. He’d even thought about asking _Persephone_ for help.

“Here,” He holds it out almost like he was all too eager to get rid of it, holding it as far from his body as he could, “For you.” Will takes them, a smile starting to spread, and Nico clears his throat for his upcoming and very prepared speech.

“Gardenia means _you are lovely_.” He croaks, pointing to the large white flowers, “Sunflowers can stand for adoration,” He points to the larger, happy faced flowers, and ignores the stunned gape that was currently being directed his way, “Tulips are a declaration.” He shoots will a look. “And today they’re only declaring _I like you_ , okay?” And then Nico holds his breath and waits to see what the answer will be, hoping for the best.

“That’s actually right!” Will exclaims, practically slapping his hand over his mouth as soon as the words managed to escape. Nico jerks back a little, shocked and a bit hurt.

“ _What_?”

“It’s just…” Will flounders for a moment, clutching his flowers close to his chest as he licks his lips and blinks nervously, “After like, the second or third time I came in here I thought that a good way to impress you would be to learn the meanings of the flowers since I figured you knew them,” Nico felt his face flush a bit deeper at that, “I thought it would make a good conversation starter. So I checked out a book from the library and found out that you’d been making literally everything up. At first I thought you were making fun of me.”

“I wasn’t!” Nico protests, and Will waves him and his objections away.

“I’d hoped so after a day or two of moping.” He sighs and Nico feels bad.

“I actually hate flowers.” He blurts out, and then he takes a moment to consider, “Well, hate is a strong word. I’m indifferent to them.”

“But you work at a flower shop!”

“It’s my step mother’s.” Nico shrugs, “And it’s a decent enough job, guaranteed to work around my school schedule when it’s in session.” He looks over at the window and shrugs again, fidgeting with his fingers a bit. “At first I just didn’t care about the meanings of flowers, and I still don’t,” He peeks at Will out of the corner of his eye, “But I figured that since you actually like flowers this would be a pretty decent way to ask you out to coffee or sandwiches or whatever. You know, a date.”

“I’d love to go on a date with you!” Will says quickly, like he’s afraid the opportunity would pass him by, “And I have no strong feelings toward flowers.”

Now it’s Nico’s turn to flounder, even as he grows warm all over from his _I’d love to go on a date with you_. “But you literally come in here and buy flowers every week! You’ve spend almost two hundred dollars on flowers in the past few months!”

“I know! I think they’re pretty, sure, but I’ve never been too into them. The only reason I kept returning was because I wanted to keep seeing you and one day actually hold a conversation with you.” He grins nervously, hiking his shoulders up to his ears, “It didn’t really work out, so I had to keep on buying flowers to have an excuse for being around here and talking to you. And let me tell you something, my mom and friends are probably pretty sick of getting flowers by now.”

Nico blinks at him, truly stunned by his confession, and then the snort of laughter that jerks through his body is almost entirely unexpected.

“We’re ridiculous.” He snorts and Will grins, relaxing and grinning so wide that it seems impossible.

“Yeah. Guess it’s a good thing that you took action and put this whole thing to an end, huh?” He asks, and Nico can’t help but smile back. Will fumbles and nearly drops his flowers, eyes going wide like he’d just had his soul shocked.

“What? What is it?” Nico asks, concerned and confused, and Will shakes his head a bit like he can’t actually believe what he’d just seen.

“You have _dimples_.” Will moans like he was actually in physical pain, “How are you even possible?”

Nico feels almost his entire body flush a violent shade of red, and ducks his head to try and hide it. That, and the small, sly smile that came at knowing that there was no way he was misreading the signals Will was throwing out. He definitely had a crush on him.

Lucky for him, Nico might have had a tiny one back.

**Author's Note:**

> Actual flower meanings-  
> Yellow rose: friendship and caring  
> Chrysanthemums: fidelity, optimism, joy and long life, slighted love  
> Goldenrods: encouragement  
> Carnations: disdain, rejection or disappointment  
> Daisies: Innocence, purity, and loyal love  
> Daffodils- regard, chivalry, and unrequited love
> 
> Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day/night/existence!


End file.
